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Reviews AUG 09 9/7/09 16:01 Page 3 landmark recording excellent good average disappointing Can’t find these CDs in your local record store? Try online at www.jazzwise.com/jazzcds instances where great singing, inventive Alyn Cosker Lyn’s Une shows towards the tonalities of the fine ballad player. Terraza clearly likes arrangements and an empathetic band Malian music that he explores so Monk but is less angular, contributing Linn AKD 338 | converge. Born in Hammersmith and thoroughly – the woody tapping of the thoughtful, propulsive solos to this Alyn Cosker (d), Ross Hamilton (b), Jason Rebello (p), raised in Barbados, Caleb made her balafon and the low, dampened thud of pleasing look at Spanish bebop. The David Dunsmuir (g), Paul Towndrow (as, ss), Tommy rather reluctant vocal debut in August Smith (ts), Ryan Quigley (t) and Maureen McMullan (v). the calabash are given pride of place, quartet swings hard, the performances 2005 at Chelsea’s 606 Club, when Rec. 14-15 August 2008 largely defining the colour of the songs revealing a level of energy and husband and band mate Jo as well as their movement. The leader commitment to swing that’s Young Scottish drummer Cosker has surreptitiously put her name down on performs with much complicity towards immediately pleasing. I just wish that both wit and passion in his playing and, the jam session list. She may have them, having clearly absorbed some of Davis had been given more to do, in Scottish music writer Rob Adams’ been scared out of her wits on that the tumbling, dancing quality of the because his solo on the street beat- formulation, technically he’s already an occasion, but Carry Me Home reveals a former and the stirring pulse of the flavoured ‘Nits de farres’ is a corker. acknowledged “prince of paradiddles… singer with a terrific sense of time, latter. Indeed, Etkin’s improvisations are Peter Vacher rim-shot royalty”. On this impressive wonderfully neat phrasing and one of effective for their clarity of construction debut as a leader, he displays a wide the most mellifluous tones imaginable. and melodic leanings though range of influences. The music is largely Flat Earth Society The album’s many highlights include occasionally he opens up and becomes built around his regular touring trio of Cheer Me, Perverts! Rodgers and Hart’s ‘Thou Swell’ with its more expansive as a soloist. drums-guitar-bass, which shows Crammed Discs Cram 138 | clever mix of the archaic and the Rhythmically and metrically rich, this is obvious affinities with the sound world of Benjamin Boutreur, Michel Mast (s), Bruno Vansina contemporary; the brooding, minor-key a very expression-laden offering in John Scofield: sharp-edged blues-funk (s, fl), Luc Van Lieshout, Bart Maris (t), Marc Dietz/Schwartz ballad ‘Alone Together’ which song, often in the form of a is one of the key modes here. But the Meeuwissen, Stefaan Blancke (tb), Berlinde DPeter performed here as a hard swinging lament, is as important as solo, and Vermeersch (cl), Tom Wouters (cl, vib), Peter presence of Smith really opens the tune; and, best of all, a free adaptation some smart arrangements, particularly Vandenberghe (p, ky), Wim Willaert (ky, acc), Pierre music out, and there is some of Wallis Willis’ title track which those with a brooding string section, Vervloesem (g), Kristof Roseeuw and Teun wonderfully expansive soloing over Verbruggen (d). Rec. November 2008 suddenly takes flight courtesy of serve the strong themes very well. Kevin Cosker’s soon-to-be-trademark (I producer Femi Temowo’s vocal Le Gendre If you think Django suspect) penchant for tricky time arrangement. Jo Caleb’s arrangements Bates squeezes a signatures. ‘Bheki’ is a gorgeously cool are exemplary (the subtle rhythmic quart of jazz notes and soulfully assured tribute to the Josep Maria Farras displacements of ‘The Surrey With The into the pint pot of the recently deceased South African pianist And Ignasi Terraza Trio Fringe On Top’ are especially good) and unforgiving minute, Bheki Mseleku, while closing ballad the Callieresque ‘The Wind’ mark him Placa Vella then beware of Flat ‘When Autumn Comes’ – written with Swit 08| out as a powerful songwriter. Peter Quinn Earth Society. Other than the fact they and sung by McMullan – strikes a fine Josep Maria Farras (t), Jesse Davis (as), Ignasi Terraza have the daftest song titles since Dr balance between folksy open- (p), Dimitri Skidanov (b) and Jean Pierre Derouard (d). Strangely Strange (ah, ‘Vole Sperm Marc Copland heartedness and jazz cunning. Rec. 31 Jul 2006 and 19 Aug 2008 New York Reverie’, there’s a name to conjure Trio Recordings Vol 3 Robert Shore I’ve always admired with) and include a gratuitous beaver (Night Whispers) New Orleans-born shot on their cover, they also rattle off Pirouet PIT3037 | Neil Cowley Trio alto player Jesse as wackily eccentric a bunch of tunes Marc Copland (p), Drew Gress (b) and Bill Stewart (d). The Revolution EP Davis, as a fervent, as you’ll have heard in an aeon or Rec. June 2008 Cake download | resourceful three. With various roots to draw improviser. He lives in New York-based pianist Marc Copland Neil Cowley (p), Richard Sadler (b) and Evan Jenkins (d). upon, most obviously Willem Breuker Italy now and tends to is one of those widely admired though Rec. date not stated and in turn his muse Kurt Weill, but pop up in a variety of pan-European also Zappa, Varèse and, of course, relatively unsung jazz musicians who It’s a typical slice of Cowley wit to cover situations. Here he joins a number of Loony Tunes, “leader”, producer and has been recording some accomplished The Beatles’ ‘Revolution No. 9’ and to Barcelona-based musicians for two of clarinettist Peter Vermeersch has a albums in the highest echelons of put it out as a downloadable EP. It’s their 11 tracks, both originals by ball, handbrake turning his contemporary post-bop US jazz since also typical that the best cut isn’t the Terraza, the rest of the programme extraordinary 14- piece orchestra the late 1980s. In a quiet way, Copland one that grabs the headlines, but is taking in standards such as ‘Solitude’ through various musical chicanes; be demonstrates how the graceful, rippling tucked away as a long, melancholic, and the anthemic ‘I Remember it the high energy clatter of the classical-derived harmony that Bill solo meditation, ‘Kalibis’. Cowley has Clifford’. aforementioned Vole song or the Evans introduced to jazz piano can be long since won friends and influenced The other musicians are unfamiliar epically joyous ‘Blind Inside’. Some taken to the next level. This is the last in people with his yoking together of quirky but I’m glad to have found them now. critics (Brits, naturally) find the Society a trilogy of a beautifully recorded series rhythms, music hall razzmatazz (much Farras (born 1942) is a sprightly “fatiguing” in its unremitting energy, of Copland’s acoustic piano trio CDs loved by Lennon, of course) and vital improviser, with something of Miles’ but most of the arrangements do have from the Munich label Pirouet. All three two-fisted attack. But ‘Kalibis’ finds plaintive quality, his sound more spaces for breath, the musicianship is feature different line-ups. Volume 2 in Cowley drawing not only on his classical centred than Miles perhaps, with a exemplary and it’s not all cartoonery: 2007 saw Copland partner avant- grounding, but also exhibiting an almost personal inflection that recalls Lee ‘Too Sublime In Sin’ is darker, more modernist giants Gary Peacock and Bill Evans-like romanticism and Morgan and Clifford Brown. His meditative while the clarinet, piano Paul Motian. But this one has arguably harmonic guile that is altogether more version of the Golson tribute song is and beeps of ‘Smoke On Fire’ is eery turned out the most successful; Copland attractive than the bluff and bluster that quite one of the best things on the and evocative. Fatiguing? Nah, is perhaps at his most potent partnering blow occasionally through the trio’s album, poised and heartfelt and he’s a inspiring. Andy Robson the much more unassuming but highly work. On an EP, though, Cowley has no responsive rhythm section of double space for fluff and filler, so the four bassist Drew Gress and drummer Bill tracks, all featuring a different voice of Alyn Cosker Stewart. What they may lack in terms of the trio, focus the attention of both the Peacock and Motian’s more dominating band and the listener. Andy Robson characters is made up for here with a beautifully intimate three-as-one group Oran Etkin Kelenia dialogue. Besides the Copland tunes Motema MTM 24 | that are both elegant and haunting, Etkin (ts, cl, b-clt), Balla Kouyate (balafon), Makane there’s a couple more oblique Kouyate (calabash, v), Joe Sanders (b), Lionel Loueke compositions from his sidemen and (g), John Benitez (b), Abdoulaye Diabate (v), Sidi Camara covers of Miles’ So What’, three elegant, (calabash), Jesse Marino (clo) and Sara Caswell (vln). re-harmonised piano soliloquies on Rec. date not stated Johnny Mandel’s ‘Emily’, and the African music is rightfully lauded for its Styne/Cahn ballad ‘I Fall In Love Too rhythmic richness but there is a danger Easily’, on which Copland reveals in all that its other qualities might be its glory his debt to the ethereal chord subsequently overshadowed. There is voicings of Bill Evans. It may not have melody and also texture, timbre and the kind of hip contemporary leanings of general sonic beauty. Perhaps the the more in-favour piano trios right now, greatest achievement of this graceful but piano trio jazz doesn’t come much debut by New York-based Israeli reed classier than this.